The present invention relates, in general, to electronics, and more particularly, to methods of forming semiconductor devices and structures.
In the past, the semiconductor industry utilized various methods and structures to form charge pump converter circuit. These charge pump converter circuits generally were used to receive a voltage from an energy source, such as a battery, and create various output voltages that were ratioed to the value of the input voltage. With the implementation of energy conservation specifications such as Energy-Star, it has become important for charge pump converters to more efficiently utilize the energy from the energy source. In some implementations, the charge pump converter monitored the value of the current supplied a load in order to adjust the amount of current supplied to the load. However, such implementations generally were not efficient enough to conform to all the energy conservation specifications.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have a charge pump converter that has high efficiency, and that has a low cost.
For simplicity and clarity of the illustration, elements in the figures are not necessarily to scale, and the same reference numbers in different figures denote the same elements. Additionally, descriptions and details of well-known steps and elements are omitted for simplicity of the description. As used herein current carrying electrode means an element of a device that carries current through the device such as a source or a drain of an MOS transistor or an emitter or a collector of a bipolar transistor or a cathode or anode of a diode, and a control electrode means an element of the device that controls current through the device such as a gate of an MOS transistor or a base of a bipolar transistor. Although the devices are explained herein as certain N-channel or P-Channel devices, a person of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that complementary devices are also possible in accordance with the present invention. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the words during, while, and when as used herein are not exact terms that mean an action takes place instantly upon an initiating action but that there may be some small but reasonable delay, such as a propagation delay, between the reaction that is initiated by the initial action. The use of the word approximately or substantially means that a value of an element has a parameter that is expected to be very close to a stated value or position. However, as is well known in the art there are always minor variances that prevent the values or positions from being exactly as stated.